Kruger’s resignation letter was kind – the fallout could prove brutal for Badenoch

“I very much regret I couldn’t give you or the Party any warning of what I’m doing this morning. On a personal level I have the greatest respect and affection for you, and indeed a real liking and admiration for Kemi who has done the most difficult job in politics with courage and resilience.”

Thus began Danny Kruger’s resignation letter to the chief whip. The only other person I’m aware he tipped off was Robert Jenrick – his old leadership hopeful – before announcing he was off to Reform UK.

Badenoch, whose leadership until yesterday morning he served as a shadow minister under, addressed Kruger’s move in a message to all Tory MPs on their WhatsApp group last night. Recognising that “no leader wants to lose a colleague as we did this morning,” Badenoch told her MPs: “The only way we will succeed is by working together as a team, knowing that our principles, values and ideas will win the public over eventually.”

She added: “We are renewing our party and preparing to rebuild our country. There will of course be bumps in the road, but we are on the right track.”

Eventually is doing some heavy lifting and is what concerns a lot of Conservative MPs; too much hope is pegged on things all turning out for the best, rather than making it so.

Her message was combative in parts –  she highlighted Labour distracted, the economy sinking, Reform “committed to left-wing economics and unlimited welfare spending”. It was also defensive. She reminded MPs that the Tories must remain the party of “personal, fiscal and civic responsibility” – “no one else will do this”.

The tone seemed to be a shift from her recent Laura Kuenssberg appearance, when she said blithely that any Tory unhappy with her leadership was “welcome to leave”. The clip has been doing the rounds, with people pointing out that perhaps her MPs are finally listening to her.

Kruger is a defection that hurts – he is no Jenkyns, Berry or Dorries. A Tory for twenty years, Kruger was once David Cameron’s speech writer (credit goes to him for the notorious ‘hug a hoodie’ speech). A friend of Dominic Cummings, he went on to work as Boris Johnson’s political secretary during the Brexit years, later being elected as the Tory MP for Devizes in 2019 and serving as a defence minister.

He has carved a political profile for himself as a philosophical thinker, fuelled by conservatism and Christianity. He opposed assisted dying, championed free speech, and – what hits most with his move to Reform – seemed destined for a serious role in a post-election Tory revival.

Which is why his departure landed with such a thud. One shadow cabinet minister admits “there was disappointment and genuine shock… even if he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea”, another MP calls it “a major blow”. Kruger’s hop along the benches was not just another former Tory trying to stick the knife in. It was, as one MP puts it, “roundly sad news”.

The question that keeps being asked in Westminster is that if there are other bright Tories on the right of the party, with futures ahead of them and facing the same set of circumstances, will they start coming to the same conclusion? Farage declared Kruger “will not be the last”. Lord Frost hinted at the same: MPs on the right are also thinking “maybe it is game over for the party – maybe it’s time for me to go too”. One shadow cabinet minister assured that “there are people in both houses [Commons and Lords] who are ready to make the switch”.

A number of the obvious suspects rule themselves out privately, although that is not necessarily a guarantee given almost nobody knew about Kruger until it happened. “He’s been ‘quiet’,” one MP says, “but he’s not a big socialiser so nobody really read into it”.

They may not have seen it coming given his recent comments about Reform. In the chamber he has referred to them as “piggybacking” and in a “desperate search to be relevant”, alleging they “would spend money like drunken sailors”. Does Kruger believe that his addition to the party could somehow temper all of that?

“I cannot work out what is going on in his head. He thinks this is a better gamble than sticking around for a possible, and likely, Jenrick leadership?” asks one MP, especially seeing as Kruger served as Jenrick’s campaign manager.

In his press conference Kruger said he now believes it is now “too late” for the party that any changes will be defunct. It made one Tory source ponder: “I wonder if he decided that either Badenoch was not going to change course, or that she wasn’t going anywhere soon enough.”

There is also the small matter of principle. If Kruger is the conscientious man he claims, why not trigger a by-election to see if his constituents agree with him? But he has ruled that out. When the former Tory MP Christian Wakeford defected to Labour in 2022, Farage said that not calling a by-election made him “the Dishonourable Member for Bury South”. By the same measure, should Kruger not now be ‘the Dishonourable Member for East Wiltshire’?

Speculation in Westminster is that summer gave rise to the influence of friends, including Dr James Orr, a Cambridge academic and Reform backer, who made up part of a group with Kruger that visited JD Vance for a barbecue while he was holidaying in the UK (the group also included Tomas Skinner of bosh/ Strictly fame). Reform’s sphere of interest grew during the summer break while the Tories appeared to vacate the frame.

And so, just as Badenoch was building up some momentum, she was hit by her first defection. One Tory source says: “It is going to either reopen or speed up the Kemi question.” She maintains that it is not going to blow her off course, but it has to be a knock after successful political attacks on Labour.

Through efforts to reveal details of Peter Mandelson’s appointment and Angela Rayner’s tax affairs – in what were called Operation Red September and Operation Stamp Out respectively – CCHQ has proven the Tories can still do politics, including the politics of opposition.

They targeted written questions, produced researched dossiers, and prepped breaking videos with Badenoch for when news came out to be fast to respond. Their organisation shows deft planning and a ramping up of operations.

Today we will see some of the fruits of that labour after the Tories used the old Brexit favourite Standing Order 24 to trigger an emergency debate on Mandelson in the Commons.

But there is no doubt that Danny Kruger’s departure has dented Badenoch after a good week. “Losing solid conservatives can never be a sign of success,” one MP says, “it is irreconcilable for LOTO to claim that this shows her plan is working”.

Kruger tried to avoid directly wielding the knife when it came to the Tory leader, speaking of his “great personal regard” for Badenoch, but that doesn’t mean she is unharmed following it – after all he concluded the past year of the Tory party had seen “a year of status and drift and the sham unity that comes from not doing anything bold or difficult or controversial”.

As a shadow cabinet minister tells me: “I don’t think it in itself shifts the dial on leadership, but … there’s a sense of inevitability.” If that inevitability takes hold then Kruger may have left a nasty wound for Badenoch to tend to.